Monash PhD student designing ‘smart’ drugs using nanoparticles

Written by David McAlpine for Monash University’s Faculty of Engineering.

Imagine a tablet that could reduce the side effects of cancer treatment by releasing a dose of medication at a particular organ or tissue.

Shahrouz Taranejoo, a PhD student in chemical engineering at Monash University, is making this a reality by designing systems that help to target drugs or genes to specific areas and control their release.

His ‘smart polymeric system’ uses several layers of nanoparticles to coat a drug particle, with the sacrificial coatings degrading at different locations as they pass through the digestive system.